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The Relative Effect of Household and Workplace Smoking Restriction on Health Status Among Chinese Americans Living in New York City

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An Erratum to this article was published on 06 June 2007

Abstract

Households and workplaces are the predominant location for exposure to secondhand smoke. The purpose of this study is to examine the association between health status and smoking restrictions at home and work and to compare the relative effect of household and workplace smoking restrictions on health status. This study uses data from a cross sectional representative probability sample of 2,537 Chinese American adults aged 18–74 living in New York City. The analysis was limited to 1,472 respondents who work indoors for wages. Forty-three percent of respondents reported a total smoking ban at home and the workplace, 20% at work only, 22% home only, and 15% reported no smoking restriction at home or work. Smokers who live under a total household smoking ban only or both a total household and total workplace ban were respectively 1.90 and 2.61 times more likely to report better health status compared with those who reported no smoking ban at work or home. Before the NYC Clean Indoor Air Act second-hand smoke (SHS) exposure among this immigrant Chinese population at home and work was high. This study finds that household smoking restrictions are more strongly associated with better health status than workplace smoking restrictions. However, better health status was most strongly associated with both a ban at work and home. Public health efforts should include a focus on promoting total household smoking bans to reduce the well-documented health risks of SHS exposure.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grant R01-CA93788-01 from the State and Community Tobacco Control Interventions Program, Tobacco Control Research Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health.

We are grateful for the contributions of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Asian Americans for Equality, American Cancer Society, and Westat, Inc.

This study was approved by the Hunter College and Columbia University Institutional Review Boards.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, 722 West 168th Street, 9th floor, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Donna Shelley & Dorothy Hung

  2. Brookdale Center on Aging, Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Rajeev Yerneni, Dihman Das & Marianne Fahs

  3. Economics Program Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, USA

    Dihman Das & Marianne Fahs

Authors
  1. Donna Shelley
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  2. Rajeev Yerneni
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  3. Dorothy Hung
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  4. Dihman Das
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  5. Marianne Fahs
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Donna Shelley.

Additional information

Shelley and Hung are with the Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY, USA; Yerneni and Fahs are with the Brookdale Center on Aging, Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA. Fahs and Das are with the Economics Program Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, USA.

An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11524-007-9204-4

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Shelley, D., Yerneni, R., Hung, D. et al. The Relative Effect of Household and Workplace Smoking Restriction on Health Status Among Chinese Americans Living in New York City. J Urban Health 84, 360–371 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-007-9190-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-007-9190-6

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